


Five Times Bucky Made Plans for Steve's Birthday (and One Time He Didn't)

by zarabithia



Category: Captain America (Comics), Invaders
Genre: Foursome, Foursome - M/M/M/M, Implied orgies, M/M, Mentor/Sidekick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 05:10:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See title.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bucky Made Plans for Steve's Birthday (and One Time He Didn't)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [comradecourt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comradecourt/gifts).



**One**

"Sure, I'd love to see what you can do," Steve had said and like a fool, Bucky had thought that meant he'd get to show off.

So far, that had gotten him knocked face first onto the floor of the wooden area surrounding Fort Lehigh no less than six times. Each time, Steve grinned at him and extended a hand to help him up.

As it turned out, all that training that Bucky had received was pretty useless against Captain America. 

"To think, the brass believes you need someone to fight dirty at your side." Bucky laughed as he was helped up, once again. "Except for all that helping me up business, you seem to fight plenty dirty." 

"Tell that to the Nazi who's got gun pointed at you. You think they'll care about a fair fight?" 

Bucky rolled his eyes. "I wasn't saying it's a bad thing. I was just saying that the boys at the top don't know you very well." 

"Not as well as my partner, I would hope," Steve answered and Bucky ignored the way his belly turned to jelly with Steve's words. 

"Your partner sure got a taste of what you can do, alright," Bucky agreed. "And while it was fun, I suppose we should be getting back to the Fort."

"Getting a few winks before Sergeant Duffy puts us through the wringer tomorrow does sound like a good idea." Steve leaned closer and wiped a smudge of dirt off Bucky's face. It was ridiculous, and Bucky was of a good mind to tell him so. 

But Steve was a sensitive guy sometimes - an _artist_ , for crying out loud - and Bucky didn't want to give him the impression that Bucky wanted Steve to stop touching him, because the opposite was true. 

Oh, Lord, was the opposite ever true. 

So instead, Bucky offered, "Happy birthday, by the way." 

Steve raised an eyebrow and looked genuinely surprised. Bucky supposed that was natural, with the whole orphan background, but still. A guy like Steve should have had plenty of friends around to remember his birthday. It wasn't fair that all Steve had was _Bucky._

"I didn't have anything to give you," Bucky continued, because rambling had saved face more than once, and the silence was beginning to get uncomfortable. "But I figured you would like to get away from Duffy and all the rest of the guys for a couple of hours on your birthday."

"And just get to be myself," Steve finished for him, and Bucky let out a deep sigh of relief, because his hunch had been right, after all. "That's a pretty perfect present, partner." 

Again with the "partner" and the jelly in the belly. Again, Bucky ignored it. "You gotta aim higher, Cap, for perfect presents." 

"Oh, do I? What should I be aiming for, Mister Barnes?" Steve's voice was full of mirth, and that had been another surprise that the folks in charge hadn't warned Bucky about - Mister Red, White and Blue had an honest to god sense of humor. 

It was one of many things Bucky never had any intention of sharing with anyone.

"I don't know, yet. But some day, after this war is over, we'll figure it out."

**Two**

"Do you like it?" Bucky asked, as Steve turned the tiny book over in his hands. 

"It's perfect," Steve said, his voice soft enough that Bucky actually had to strain to hear the reply. "I'm not sure how you managed in the middle of this war, and I'm sure I should give you plenty of scoldings about splurging on me, but - " 

"Or you could just enjoy it," Bucky chided, because if anyone was going to be doing any scolding, after how long it had taken him to get his hands on that sketchbook, it was going to be Bucky.

"I do enjoy it," Steve said, and his voice was as firm in that statement as if someone had asked him his feelings on Nazis. Lord, but the man was a sentimental sap sometimes.

Never mind that Bucky would have punched anyone who tried to argue that as a negative quality. 

"Then stop feeling so bad about getting something you enjoy. I couldn't stand to watch you scribble on little pieces of scrap paper that you're supposed to be using to write letters to your dame back home." 

Steve chuckled. "I don't see why I can't put the scraps of paper to good use. I don't _have_ a dame back home to write to." 

"And that's good for us, because I have a feeling she'd be pretty jealous about the _other_ way I intend spend your birthday." 

"How might that be, partner?" 

The phrase was still enough to twist Bucky's belly in all the right ways, but a year into the war, Steve's tone had changed enough that it had an entirely different effect on an entirely different part of Bucky's body. "You're on the wrong side of this tent for me to show you, _partner._ "

Steve didn't need to be encouraged to join Bucky more than once. But Bucky did get a perverse pleasure in the careful way Steve placed his sketchbook on top of the rest of the dry supplies. 

When the war was over and things were less scarce, Bucky was going to buy Steve all the art supplies he could ever want.

**Three**

"So last night, Steve sketched me in your costume," Bucky informed Toro between his last bites of the candy they'd split between them. The candy was well over a week old, and tasted like the inside of Bucky's costume, where it had been stashed all that time. It also tasted just a bit like the mud Bucky'd spent the past week hiking through. 

It really should have been eaten earlier, when the pretty civilian had given it to Bucky, but he'd spent all week with the troops, and it didn't seem fair to eat it in front of them. 

Bucky just hoped it was his own blood drying on the candy's wrapper, and not someone else's. 

Toro didn't seem to mind, either way, possibly because he was distracted by this new tidbit of information. 

"Do you think we should tell _Papi_ , or do you think he'll be jealous?" As Toro asked the question, he licked the remains of the melted chocolate off his fingers. 

That was the problem with Tom. A fellow could never tell how much of his innocent act was an act and how much wasn't. 

If it hadn't been Steve's birthday, Bucky would have taken taken at least the rest of the day trying to tease out the exact answer to that query. As it was, Bucky went on a hunch that most of that act was full of crap.

"Oh, I think Jim'll be jealous. At least, until we make it clear he's invited, too," Bucky said flippantly. 

It wasn't something that he'd dare to say to just anyone, of course. But Toro wasn't just anybody, and those looks Jim gave Toro weren't looks a fellow gave just anybody, either. 

No matter what that "papi" stuff might have said to the contrary.

Fortunately - after a wide-eyed stare that momentarily made Bucky wonder about his hunch - Toro glanced over at the abandoned warehouse the Invaders were calling home for the night. "Cap's still in there, right?" 

"He sure is, Toro."

"Then what do you say you and me go get started on making Papi jealous? He and Namor should be back in just about enough time ..." 

Jim and Namor _were_ back in just enough time to take over for an exhausted Bucky and Toro. 

Bucky waited for _them_ to become exhausted, before he snuggled up to his super solider and whispered, "Happy Birthday. I hope you liked the present better than the melted chocolate I could have given you instead." 

Steve gave a startled chuckle into Bucky's hair as he glanced over at the rest of the sleeping Invaders. "You gave me the Invaders for my birthday? Why, Buck, now I see what you meant about aiming higher." 

"Just think about the things I'll be able to give you when the war is over," Bucky said, yawning sleepily. 

"As long as they involve you," Steve replied, because the man really was a _terrible_ sap. 

**Four**

Bucky had his orders, and he couldn't exactly turn them down. Even if he could, Steve's disapproval would never have been worth it. 

But as important as Bucky's mission was, and as much as Bucky _knew_ that, it didn't take the sting out of not being able to be near Steve on this particular day. 

When the war was over, Bucky was never going to let a single birthday go uncelebrated. 

With that plan firmly promised, Bucky slid the knife across the enemy's throat.

**Five**

No matter how long Bucky stood at the memorial, he couldn't stop being angry that it existed. 

When Steve had been murdered, he'd been bound like a common criminal. The bunch of back-stabbing so-called heroes who _should_ have taken Bucky's place in watching Steve's back had instead shoved that knife in as far as it would go, and, as though that hadn't been enough, further twisted the knife, going so far as to be complacent in accusing Steve of _treason._

Worse, the country who had accused Steve of the act had given him a memorial. It was a cowardly, backhanded type of apology from a world who didn't deserve Steve in the least. 

As for the statue itself - it was, Bucky thought, a gaudy, ridiculous thing, and the last thing that Steve would have ever wanted. 

But Bucky set the flowers at the bottom, along with all the others. At least his gift wasn't alone. That knowledge was almost enough to sooth the rage - rage that Steve wouldn't have approved of. 

"I have to go," Bucky told the memorial, and he was almost glad that his outlaw status as an unregistered hero made it necessary to wait until late at night to make this journey. Here he was alone, safe to sound as foolish as he wanted to sound, for a friend who deserved much better.

"We're having a bit of a get together back at your place." Which was Avengers headquarters now - at least, headquarters for the _real_ Avengers, Bucky thought with another rash of bitterness that Steve wouldn't have approved of. "Barton's making burgers, which Bobbi tells me is just as terrifying as it sounds. Cage is making some sort of potato salad that is apparently his grandmother's recipe. Wolverine is in charge of the hot dogs, and Sam ... Sam was in charge of the relish."

Bucky didn't mention that Sam had let him taste it beforehand. Bucky didn't mention that he'd very nearly broken down when Sam had - in what was supposed to be a casual way, Bucky was sure, except that nothing was casual on this particular day - mentioned that it was Steve's recipe. 

"Carol bought a cake. Well, a cheesecake. One of the ones with raspberries and blueberries." 

Bucky wondered if anyone was going to be able to actually cut into the flag-decorated cake, but he didn't mention that, either.

"So I have to get back to that." Bucky cleared his throat, which suddenly seemed swollen beyond ability to talk, but he forced himself to continue, regardless. "Some of your friends aren't too bad, Steve, and for what it's worth, I mostly see why you chose them. Even when I'm angry, I ... well, I try. That's all I can do, Steve, and I'm sorry I can't do more." 

Bucky ran his hand over the smooth marble of the memorial. "See you next year, partner." 

**And the one time he didn't**

In fairness, Bucky had spent three months in an alternate dimension fighting some sort of alien menace that made _the Norse god_ of the team wary. Bucky was tired, sore, cranky, and all he really wanted to do was take a hot shower and fall into bed next to Steve. 

He had every intention of spending the next three months there, for the record. 

But then, before they had time to leave the mansion, Jarvis appeared and wished Steve happy birthday. 

Bucky was displeased, to say the least.

"We made it back in one piece, Buck," Steve said as he mounted his motorcycle, after declining Iron Man's offer to order out for take-out. Take-out! After a year of being a fugitive, Bucky was pretty damn sick of take-out. "That's good enough of a present for me." 

"You don't understand, Steve. This was the first and only birthday I've _forgotten_ \- well, unless you count the years as a Soviet assassin."

"Those don't count," Steve said firmly, and Bucky rolled his eyes and mounted the bike behind Steve, the conversation momentarily interrupted by the roar of the bike on their way back home to Brooklyn.

Bucky had every intention of continuing the conversation, but then they walked into their apartment and the sight that greeted them kind of made it impossible. 

"Happy birthday! We were going to make you a cake, but we turned down Sam's offer of help, so ... the cake kind of died!" Rikki explained. 

"So we let him help us with the cupcakes instead. They kind of count, right? I mean, they're baby cakes, why wouldn't they count?" Anya asked. 

"They absolutely count, Anya," Steve said, accepting one graciously. 

While it wasn't unusual for Rikki or her "friend" Anya to be there - Rikki lived there, after all - the pile of red, blue and white cupcakes on the table in front of her _was_ unusual. 

So was the gathering playing cards at the other end of the table. Sam, Sharon, Tom, Jim, and Natalia sat playing cards around a pile of potato chips, hot dogs and burgers.

Oh, and the relish. God bless Sam, Bucky thought.

"We also made you an approximation of real food," Natasha remarked, frowning slightly at the cards in her hand. 

"Which you can only have after you take a shower. You smell," Sharon said bluntly. 

"And I'm in the middle of a nice winning streak, so you two should take as much time as you like," Sam offered. 

"You should let us play," Rikki noted, leaning over Natalia's shoulder to look at the cards. 

"You're far too young," Jim answered, and Toro's laughter followed Bucky and Steve to the shower. 

"Still mad?" Steve whispered, as the bathroom door swung shut behind them.

"Nope. It's a pretty decent birthday celebration," Bucky whispered back, leaning back and letting Steve remove Bucky's clothes. It was Steve's birthday, after all, and if he wanted to spend it stripping Bucky of his clothes, that was certainly his right. 

"I certainly can't complain. The family that's gathered in this apartment... it's everything I've ever wanted, partner." 

"Me too," Bucky admitted, before giving Steve a proper birthday kiss.

If Bucky briefly thought about what the seven adults could get up to after the kids went to bed – well, it was far too brief of a thought to be considered a "plan," surely.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Steve's birthday week! Comradecourt provided the prompt.


End file.
